Nana and Pop-Pop, my mom's parents, used to fly me and my sisters to Florida every spring break for a week of sun. They rented a little condo in Siesta Key with a 2 minute walk from the patio to the sand. A bunch of their friends and siblings went to the same area every year and they had nightly cocktails with the crew while watching the sunset, hoping for a glimpse of the green flash. The adults got drunk and we got ginger ale and little pretzel combos for snacks. We loved it! My sisters and I would hop from the beach to the funky pool all morning, eat BLTs for lunch on thin Pepperidge Farm bread with Pringles and Cokes, then take shopping trips with Nana to Sand Dollar, a shop with shells and other knick knacks for sale. We saved our allowance for weeks to pay for the coveted exotic crap that we could bring back to the cold winter of northern Idaho to remember our adventures.
At some point early in my mom's parenting she decided that her children's success was solely dependent on how many vegetables we ate. We weren't allowed to have any sugar or junk food and we seldom ate meat. My mom was a health nut before any palatable options were available. We brought our own popcorn into the movies to avoid the unhealthy oils and excess salt from movie theater popcorn. One year mom sweetened my sister's birthday cake with applesauce. No sugar, just applesauce. Her version of an ideal dinner was tofu, steamed vegetables and steamed rice. Dr. Bronner's aminos and brewer's yeast were the seasonings. I remember being so hungry that I gobbled the stuff up every night but give me anything fried or calorie dense? I would have been in heaven! A whole week with snacks and bacon and sodas, on top of the white sandy beaches and warm water, it was like a dream come true! If you had offered me any place in the world I would have chosen that week with my sisters and grandparents in Florida. Better than Disneyland. Better than anything else I could imagine.
Comments